Editor,
Our President, Dr. Gordon, was quoted in The Albuquerque Tribune on Oct. 25 as saying that a person's First Amendment rights are not to be confused with academic freedom. Regarding Professor Berthold, he suggested that it may be a case where a professor's "First Amendment rights collided with his (or her) professional responsibilities."
He goes on to ask, apparently rhetorically, "Are you being responsible ... to say something inflammatory for the sake of being inflammatory?" Assuming that President Gordon really said this, I have two questions for him.
First, I, as a philosophy professor, often say inflammatory things in my classes for the sake of being inflammatory. I do that to create cognitive dissonance, to awaken students from their dogmatic slumbers (sometimes it takes a bullhorn) and to provoke them to think.
Am I liable to be disciplined for this?
Second, there are some faculty at this University who are terrible teachers, others who are pathetic researchers, others who use profanity in the classroom, others who don't give a damn about their students, others who have sexual relations with them and still others who are just insufferably rude and immature.
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Why is Professor Berthold being disciplined for saying something "inflammatory for the sake of being inflammatory" but these people are not?
John Taber
Philosophy Department
